


Second Impressions

by Entomancy



Series: The End [4]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entomancy/pseuds/Entomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early on at the Jaffa factory, and Lalna discovers that working there may be more interesting than he had first assumed.<br/>Featuring unplanned chickens, magical medical interventions, and the workplace importance of improved communication.<br/>(Mild warning for injury and mentions of surgery.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Impressions

He awoke to the sound of chickens. After a few moments of resisting the intrusive concept of consciousness, Lalna finally gave up trying to convince himself that the sound was just something sensible – like sleep-deprived hallucinations – and inched one eyelid open, resentfully. There was definitely a chicken peering at him, ticking its head back and forth so that each mad bird eye could get a better look, and he muttered a few half-awake invectives into his pillow.

There had been a crate of chickens in the workshed, and he distinctly remembered Honeydew’s back-yelled assertions that the dwarf’s half-arsed job of fencing them in would be fine.

“...you little buggers,” he muttered, as pried himself out of the tangle of bedsheets and slung his legs round, scattering a few inquisitive feathery shapes that had taken up roosts on his boots. He rubbed at his face, wincing slightly as the trailing goggle straps unstuck from his cheek, and tried to shake off the fogged all-over feeling that sleeping in your clothes could bring. He had entirely lost track of time last night – trying to find some way to adjust Xephos’ ever-increasing wall of horrendously inefficient machines into something that at least _resembled_ a decent resource system – and with both of his coworkers elsewhere, he had lapsed back into his more usual pattern of treating sleep as a basic inconvenience.

_Co-workers. Hah._

He straightened up, making a vague attempt to shake the stiffness out of his limbs, frowning as he headed towards the door. It wasn’t that the work was particularly difficult - even if biting his tongue over Xephos’ weird choices of machinery, or his apparent-boss’s entire lack of understanding of... anything at all, was proving a task all in itself - but he just couldn’t see the _point_ of it.

Why build a cake factory out here, in the middle of absolute nowhere, for godsake? They would have to ship in just about every ingredient – except possibly wheat – unless he managed to find some way to tactfully broach the subject of using ridiculously advanced technology to solve a simple problem of bad logistics. And it wasn’t like he was _against_ that suggestion, but it might be a bit hard to explain how he knew about the options.

They had hired him for an engineer, and the remote location and lack of searching questions had certainly suited his own purposes at the time. But communication went two ways, and he hadn’t exactly expected to be camping out in a shack, designing quarries and logic-defying equipment walls for an unlikely partnership that bickered like old women, made decisions apparently at random, and sometimes vanished for days at a time with very little warning.

How many _conferences_ on biscuit making could there reasonably be? And how many times did they really expect him to accept that excuse? Honestly, if they just wanted time alone, he could make his own camp somewhere else, for as long as it took the remnants of his patience with this weird endeavour to wear out.

_So, maybe about four more days?_

Lalna readjusted his goggles and made a cursory attempt to chase some of the inadvertent-pyjama wrinkles out of his coat, as he ducked out of the door – because having a _dwarf_ set the lintel had been such a good idea – and shaded his eyes from the early sunlight that reflected off the white-marble frontage of the factory shell. The place didn't even have a proper roof yet.

Right. One more go at that flippin' wall, and then he’d...

His thoughts trailed off as he noticed the factory door was open. He was sure he hadn't left it that way. It was possible that the others were back, but he ducked back into the hut even so and grabbed the mining laser he had propped just inside the door. Better to be safe than… anything else.

Lalna slid quietly across the open space between the buildings and flattened himself against the wall, listening carefully. There was sound from inside, echoing strangely against the cavernous interior – a low, erratic groaning – and he tightened his grip on the weapon. What the hell was -?

Faster than he would have thought possible, a hand suddenly swung around the frame, clamping around his arm with an iron grip that hauled the shocked scientist into the building and tore the laser from his fingers, all in one swift – and low – movement.

"Lalna! Thank fuck for that!"

Lalna stared down, riveted in place with disbelief as he met Honeydew's wide, unusually-serious gaze. The dwarf looked bad; there were deep scratches like claw wounds sketched down his face, over features drawn tight with worry, and he was shrouded in a distinct scent of burning hair. The thick fingers still clamped around Lalna's arm were bloody, leaving ragged stripes of crimson beneath the grip, and some node at the back of his mind noted the dwarf was dressed very differently than usual – his ridiculous golden armour gone, replaced with a set of blunt steel, peppered with a legacy of old metallic scars. It looked unusually… functional.

 _He_ looked functional; more serious, more focused than Lalna had ever seen him. And considerably more worried.

"Honeydew? What – what's going - ?"

"We ballsed up," the dwarf muttered, through gritted teeth, and Lalna felt another bolt of shock at the wet-brightness of the eyes beneath those caterpillar brows, even as he was dragged further into the dull-lit space of the factory. They rounded some of the scaffolding, and it took a few moments before his still sleep-dulled brain could make sense of what he was seeing – and then he had to catch himself, as shock threatened to take his balance.

Xephos was sprawled out on a rough table of crates, hastily pulled together, and if Lalna had thought the _dwarf_ looked bad, he had only been beginning to explore the word. The man looked like he had been used as a target for an archery contest. Around a dozen broken-off arrow shafts stuck like bloodstained exclamations from his skin, and his clothing was torn, charred in innumerable places; but the worst part was down his left side, from neck to ribs. Lalna gawked in disbelief, staring at the layer of what looked for all the world like _lava_ there, gleaming malevolently in the factory gloom. Xephos' features were contorted in pain; he might have been unconscious – _oh **god** I hope he's unconscious _ – but occasional choking groans bubbled over his lips, tinged with blood.

"We had fire resistance potions," Honeydew muttered, his voice tight as he made his way back over and caught one of Xephos' hands, and a shuddering spasm rolled down the man's body. "But they… fuck, Lalna, I don't even know! Never seen anything do this before, I don't – "

"What the - ?" Lalna finally managed to steady himself, and took a hesitant step towards the horrible tableau, searching for sensible words" - how – how did – _you were at a conference!_ "

Honeydew looked up at him, sharply.

"Yeah, and the debate got really heated. Now grab whatever you've got for this sort of shit and _help me!_ "

Lalna stared at him, caught in the paralysing fronds of impossibility that seemed to have sprung up around him. There were so many half-formed thoughts, whirling in the hollow space where his brain normally was, and he sought refuge in one of the only clear ones.

"You hired me as an engineer. Not as – not – " He cut off as Xephos made another pain-strained sound and Honeydew slung his arm out, pinning his friend back down as another spasm washed through him like a wave. When he looked up again, Lalna was shaken by the sheer steel under that usually-jovial gaze.

"Get. Your stuff," the voice was a deadly monotone and he found himself nodding, backing away until it seemed reasonable to turn heel and dash.

The workshed door rebounded on its hinges behind him and he came to a sudden halt, sitting down heavily on the nearest chest, and caught his own elbows, gripping tightly until his heartbeat began to slow down again.

What the hell? _What the hell?_

"Calm down," he muttered, staring up at the erratic arrangements of chests, trying to draw a little composure from the everyday sight. He had plenty of time to be surprised later. Plenty. He could _do_ this, of course – already ideas were rising, condensing out of the blur of thoughts into crisp, sharp things that came with their own instructions – and he let out a long, slow breath.

 _You haven't exactly been one-hundred percent honest with_ them _, either._

And, god help him – whatever else, whatever the surprise, whatever this might mean for his weird factory job or the vague plans he might have laid – this was _intriguing_.

A few minutes rooting around in the shed found a few things that fitted into the ideas; he crammed everything into the cleanest bag he could find then scaled the ladder between rooms, dodging chickens until he could reach his personal chest. He donned a clean labcoat – tossing the other over the nearest group of clucking birds – and dug down through the layers of comparatively innocent personal effects, until he found the innocuous little bag, hidden right at the bottom, and snatched that up too.

Very little had changed when he burst back into the factory, slightly breathless, and dumped his scavenged handfuls onto another of the nearby crates. Honeydew's initial expression of intense relief – he could quite easily just have run off, he realised – twisted into suspicion quite quickly, as Lalna shook open the bags and began to sift through the contents. It was undoubtedly a strange assortment.

“Strip him.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Strip. Him,” Lalna snapped back, as he pulled off his gloves with his teeth and twisted a fine metal band onto one finger, tucking the accompanying thin chain under his collar. “It's not exactly sterile in here, but burnt bloody clothes sure won't help.”

Thin scalpel blades rattled under his fingers as he tipped the alchemical bag further, until he found the gleam of glass amongst the chaos, and plucked the stoppered bottles clear. Not many of these left, and it wasn't as if his previous supply was available -

He cut the thought. Not now. Not the time.

Turning back to the makeshift table, he flexed his fingers, and felt the ring shiver into life against him. It had been... a while, since he'd used this, and he pushed aside the smoky memories of _that_ as he turned his attention to the lava-like substance. With the ring active, he could just about make out a faint etharic corona bound up around the glow – which explained why it didn't look like it was cooling.

Thankfully, it didn't look like it was actually burning much, either.

“You had resistance?” he muttered, leaning closer and pulling his goggles down with his other hand. Honeydew – gingerly trying to undo shirt buttons without knocking against any of the arrows – nodded.

“Yeah. They worked too,” he added, defensively. “I cocked up jumps twice, not a singe. Then every bloody mob and their grandmas start coming out of the god damn walls. I didn't – I didn't even see it...” he trailed off, but Lalna had stopped listening, as he peered – nearly nose-to-surface – into the molten brightness. There were patterns swirling there, repeated, fractal, and he tried to map out the spell's code.

“This was expecting resistance,” he muttered, half to himself. “It's probably meant just to stick until the potion wears off.”

“And?”

“Oh, then it burns your face off.” Lalna ignored the dwarf's sharp breath, and brought his splayed fingers up over the gleaming surface. “Good idea, really.”

There was some sort of expletive in response, but he didn't pay attention, as he carefully sank his fingertips into the brilliant mess. The ring shivered, warm against his hand, but it was the only thing that was, as he felt the displaced heat of it drain away into the little crimson stone.

The question was – did he try and undo the magic knotted up in here, or just break it down? That close, he could feel the flow of the spell, wary at the ring's intrusion. It was beautiful, in a slightly twisted way, and he _itched_ to take his time, unpick every thaumic thread one by one until he could run them through his fingers and unlock their shape...

 _Later_.

Chasing away his own faint sense of disappointment, he snapped the adhesive lines, forced a hold in the viscous substance, and drew back. For a long, strained second it didn't move properly, still clinging determinedly to Xephos' residual alchemical resistance, and then the pressure gave and the lava-layer peeled away, taking pieces of smouldering shirt with it. The skin beneath was an angry, scalded red, but whole enough.

Lalna tossed the disarmed trap aside onto an open area of marble, where it hissed and spat against the cool surface, and stepped back again. Honeydew was staring at him like he'd just sprouted an extra head.

“...the bloody hell was all that?”

Lalna grinned and waggled his fingers.

“Ring of ignition. It's handy.”

“So, what, you're a _magical_ mad scientist now?” the dwarf grumbled, as Lalna turned back to his equipment. He picked up the scalpels and let a brief wave of conjured flame loose about the metal, watching tiny particles of dirt go supernova at the edges, then pulled the heat back and propped the sterilised instruments into his pocket as he helped remove the rest of Xephos' ruined clothes.

By now, he had already been expecting to see more of a dermal life-history than his sudden patient's halting politeness and – apparent – career would suggest, but he was still a little taken aback by the sheer _extent_ of scarring that stretched across the man's uncovered skin. A lot was fairly old, and most were little more than the sort of smoothed-over, grey-pink marks that potion-healing tended to leave, but even still...

His gaze tracked down limbs crowded with the ghosts of faded wounds. Some of the shapes he could recognise by geometry alone – straight bites of edge and blade, rough-edged shapes more like burn marks – but some were strange even to him. Xephos' hands and face were oddly clear in comparison, suggesting either a very _specific_ sort of bad luck, or a lot of effort spent making them so.

_...who **are** you?_

He couldn't help glance down at Honeydew – who was looking at him with a stony expression under his own current wounds – but he had no idea how dwarves healed, so there were no easily-found hints there.

“Got all you need?” he rumbled, gruffly, and Lalna nodded as he leaned forward again, mapping triage in his head as he snapped a pair of clean gloves into place, and reached for a small syringe of something suitably opiate.Curiosity could wait a bit.

He worked as quickly as he could. Even with the healing potion – dripped steadily between Xephos' cracked lips by his attendant dwarf – the man had already lost a lot of blood, and there were limits to the kind of alchemy they had access to right now. You couldn't inject these concoctions, for one thing. Well, you _could_ , but the risk of generating a self-replicating embolism was a bit higher than he wanted to chance.

Most of the arrow wounds weren't very serious alone – the heads were some sort of obsidian, decoratively carved, but far too large to deliver death very effectively – but there were a lot of them, and he was pretty sure that a couple had nicked into lungs. His world narrowed down as the blackout tunnel of deep focus drew into place around him, scrolling plans and forming ideas along its surface as he sank, trance-like into the play of it.

Sooner or later, everything was a game – but he knew how to _win_ this one.

Then, suddenly, there was nothing else to do. Lalna cut the final bandage and stood back, blinking, as he pulled his goggles back up onto his forehead, and surveyed his handiwork.

 _Not bad_.

Xephos' expression had finally relaxed into the blank calm of drugged sleep, and many of the smaller cuts had already closed under the alchemical influx. He looked battered, and was grey with exhaustion, but at least he looked more firmly _alive_ now. Lalna let out a long breath, and tried to ignore the little stabs of concentration-headache jabbing at the back of his mind. Honeydew raised an eyebrow at him, and he nodded.

“We're done, I think. Much potion left?” The proffered bottle towards was about half full, and he nodded again. “Right. He'll probably need most of that still, so you grab a swig now, and - ”

“Nah, I'm good,” Honeydew cut him off, waving a hand. Lalna frowned.

“Really, there's be enough for - “

“I'm _good_ , goggles,” the retort could have been sharpened, and he decided to leave it. He went to rub his face – stopped – and wiped his hands marginally-cleaner on his coat.

“We should move him. It's not recuperation-comfy in here.”

The words 'can you carry him?' rose and died on his lips, as Honeydew carefully hefted the much taller form into his arms, arranging limbs, and jerked a nod beyond Lalna at the door.

“Make yourself useful.”

It was barely midday. Lalna waited until the dwarf was fussing around, settling his friend into the big bed and shooing at the remaining chickens, and slipped away. There was a rough bathroom set against the far side of the hut, but he made his way further from the buildings until he found one of the small streams that scattered the area, gushing from under a rocky outcrop against the hill.

The water was shockingly cold against his skin as he stripped off the bloody coat and gloves and sank his stained arms into the flow, rubbing hard with fingers that hadn't shaken before – and now, surely, only with the chill. He knelt down, plunging his face into the stream, scrubbing at his hair, then sat back, shivering, and watched the dark coils whip away, fading in the clear water.

_...okay._

“O-okay,” he breathed, wiping a damp hand across his face, and stared down at the bloodstained heap of fabric by his feet.

Now what?

\---

Late afternoon was already shading towards evening when Honeydew looked up, and gestured with his tankard at the taller figure walking slowly back towards the work hut. The dwarf was sat on a wide wooden crate, just outside the door, and he wordlessly shuffled aside, proffering a second mug as Lalna sat down and dropped a folded pile of damp white cloth beside the improvised chair.

He took the drink and sipped it carefully – only wincing a little as the dwarven brew hit the back of his throat like a stone fist. They sat in silence for a while, watching shadows start to slide down the factory walls. Honeydew spoke first.

“Wasn't sure you were coming back,” he said, gruffly; but not unkindly. Lalna took another swig of the possibly-ale, and gave a faint smile.

“Thought about it.”

More silence, as night creatures began to rustle and rouse in the grass around them. Honeydew drained his mug, then sat back and belched loudly.

“So then. You staying on, mad-boy?”

Lalna's bare fingers tightened around the drink.

“...you don't know anything about me,” he said quietly, and jumped as Honeydew suddenly swung one metal-decked hand onto his shoulder.

“Know a bloody lot more'n when we hired you. Transferable skills, I think s'called.” He sniffed, and scratched at his beard. “Never been so fussed on the whys and wheres, myself.”

“I don't – I'm not – ”

Honeydew drew his hand back and coughed, almost awkwardly.

“Set you up properly, this time though.” He nudged him in the ribs, as Lalna blinked. “What's the point having a crazy scientist on staff otherwise?”

“I'm not crazy,” Lalna protested, but not hard, and Honeydew snorted.

“Nutty; eccentric; gifted; whatever. Just no, like - “ he waved a hand expansively “- reanimating the dead, or destroying the world, or anything, alright? Not on company time, anyway.”

Lalna burst out laughing. He couldn't help it. Before the dwarf's expression could change to anything more wary, he raised the mug and tilted it towards him, shoulders still shaking. Another drink appeared, as if by magic, in Honeydew's other hand, and the tankards clanked nosily.

“Deal,” he managed when he was able to breathe again, and took a throat-clenching swig of the ale, grimacing. “Oh god, though, first thing – I'm gonna brew something better than this.”

“Finest dwarven ale, that!” Honeydew protested, then shrugged at Lalna's raised eyebrow. “Well, might be a bit aged, now you mention it.” He sniffed again, and Lalna hesitated. Possibly he shouldn't ask, but he had to _know._

“...why a cake factory? After all that – all the scars, I don't – “

“Bit forward, aren't you?” Honeydew grunted, but Lalna met the dwarf's suddenly-serious gaze, unperturbed, and finally he sighed, leaning further back until he was resting his helmet against the wooden wall.

“Good traditional dwarven market for jaffas. I like 'em, and...” he trailed off, his visible expression sobering further. “Well, we needed something else to do. Bit different. Bit... further away. I'm thinking we got _that_ in common.”

Lalna nodded as he took another swig. It burned less, this time.

“ _That_ wasn't cake factory, though.”

“Yeah, and _that_ ain't quarrying.” Honeydew nodded down to Lalna's hand, bare now, but where the feel of the ring still weighed against him. The dwarf hesitated, and – for a moment – he looked almost older, somehow heavier, as if there was something pressing down on the wide shoulders beyond his armour. Then it was gone, and he wiped a few traces of ale out of his beard. His visible wounds were already starting to close, Lalna couldn't help but notice.

“It's not easy, walking out of a life. You just... gotta keep your hand in, sometimes. Stops y'going barmy.”

“Yeah,” he replied, quietly, as they both stared out into the night. “You do.”

Stars were starting to wink in above them. The silence had folded back, so heavy that Lalna jumped as Honeydew gave a huge sigh, shaking his head, and followed it with a bark of laughter.

“Right; that's enough cryptic fucking chats in the dark, I'd say.” He straightened up, as much as that was possible, and thrust a thick hand out in Lalna's direction. “Still in, then? For the finest jaffas this side of Khaz'Modan?”

“...yeah.” Lalna accepted the hand, and a grin rose onto his face as he looked up at the towering – but suddenly so much more inviting – bulk of the factory. “I've got a few ideas for that.”

_This was going to be interesting, after all._

\---


End file.
